Weaving



Sept. 11, 1928.

R. C. MclLROY wmvme Filed May 9, 1927 INVENTOR 0L fil ATTORNEY Patented Sept. 11, 1928.

UNITED STATES 1,683,983 PATENT OFFICE.

RONALD CRAWFORD MCILROY, OF LEWISTON, MAINE, ASSIGNOR T0 COLUMBIA XVGOLEN CSMPANY, ACORPORATION OF MAINE.

y WEAVING.

Application filed May 9, 1927.

Vhen it is desired to weave complicated patterns such as patterns involving curved lines, it is desirable to resort to the Jacquard loom, since each warp thread must at times be individually raised and lowered. In th s type loom control of the warp threads is obtained by passing each warp thread through a maileye in a heddle at the lower end of which is a weight to draw it down. The upper end of the heddle is attached to a cord which is passed through a board above the warp in which holes are drilled to hold the cords in their proper locations. The cords, either grouped or ungrouped,

' according to whether there are repeats or not in the pattern are attached to the lower ends of the upright wires, a hook being formed in the upper end of eaclrwire. These hooks are arranged in rows and in front of each row is a knife or griil, which is constantly moving up and down in proper time and sequence with the motion of the lay. Normally, the hooks are in position to engage over the upper edge of the grids. Near the top of the vertical hook wire is a horizontal wire carrying a projection which bears against the upright wire in such a manner that if the horizontal wire is moved lengthwise it will move the hook end of the upright out of engagement of the rising gritt. The ends of these horizontal wires project uniformly and directly towards a multi-faced cylinder mounted so that it can be revolved and moved to and from the ends of the horizontal wires. Holes are drilled in this cylinder corresponding with the end of each horizontal wire. A series of jacquard cards pass over this cylinder there being a card for every pick thread, i. e. a card for each pick thread controls the warp thread to produce the shed for each transverse movement of the shuttle laying the pick thread. A card upon the cylinder is pressed against the ends of the wires and if there is a hole in the card the wire is not moved lengthwise, and the hook is engaged by the griff, which in moving upward raises the cord and its corresponding warp thread or threads, as the case may be. Hole are punched in the cards in such an arrangement that the desired horizontal wires may enter the holes in the cylinder and the proper hooks and their corresponding warp threads will be raised or left down in order Serial No. 189,794. i

pattern will show upon the other changeable characters, which go to make up a symbol, or series of characters connotrng a certain meaning, mto a fabric 'during the process of weaving. It is'an object of this invention to provide such a method particularly adaptable for use in conjunction with a Jacquard loom, such as previously described and to make it possible for a set of jacquard cards to be cut, rouped, corresponding to each interchangeable unit or character of a series of such units or characters compilable from these'units, and laced together in, such a manner that they may be removed and preserved for further use in weaving other series composed of the same units arranged in different order.

Heretofore in utilizing the Jacquard loom to weave a series of characters, such as a name for example, into a blanket or other piece of woven fabric, the blanket was customarily woven with the length of the blanket running with the warp threads and the name was woven into the blanket across the width thereof or parallel with the pick threads, thus a pick thread ran through every letter of the name. WVhen weaving a name in this manner, since there must necessarily be a jacquard card for each pick thread and each pick thread lying in the, area of the name goes through every letten of the name, a set of cards must be cut and prepared for the particular name in its entirety involving suiiicient cards corresponding in number to the pick threads throughout the entire name. It necessarily follows that once a suficient number of blankets for example, were made with a given name woven there int-o, the cards used for that particular design or name were of no further use and were usually discarded.

In accordance with this invention, if it is desired to weave a name or the like made up of interchangeable units, such as letters in a name for instance, the fabric is woven with the name running lengthwise with the weaving of the fabric, that is with the vertical axis of the letters, parallel with the warp threads so that the warp threads in the usual arrangement extend through substantially all. the letters of the name, and the pick threads traverse only a single letter of the entire name.

This method will be brought out in more detail in the following description taken in connection with the drawings and will be defined in the claims appended hereto:

Fig. 1 illustrates a blanket woven by the old method;

Fig. 2 illustrates a blanket woven by the new method, and

Fig. 3 illustrates a group of laced jacquard cards representing a single and complete letter of the alphabet.

In the former method as illustrated in Fig. 1 the warp threads l went through only one letter, of the name but the pick threads 6 went through every letter in the name. It is obvious that the relative position of the name in the fabric or the number of times that it appears is immaterial so far as the method of weaving the name in the loom is concerned.

It follows that by employing my method of weaving a name into a woven fabric, namely to weave the name parallel with the warp threads or with the vertical axis of each letter parallel to the warp threads, the set of cards representing the pick threads running through one letter of the name may be grouped and laced together as a group which other similarly grouped sets of cards corresponding to other letters to spell out any desired word. The groups or sets may be preserved and repeatedly used to spell out different Words and names as desired. In the method heretofore used with the pick threads runningthrough every letter of the name such grouping was impossible since no group of. cards corresponded to one letter hence no one letter could be segregated from the others in. the name. Consequently each name required a full and distinct set of jacquard cards which were useless for any purpose but the one name for which they were cut. The manufacturing and commercial advantages of my method over the prior method are apparent and need not be discussed at length, suflice it to say that names and the like may be woven into fabric without additional cost other than theinitial e2;- pense of obtaining a set of jacquard cards corresponding to the alphabet or other similar units which go to make up a complete design, r

I claim 1. A series of cards for use in a Jacquard loom composed of a plurality of groups of cards each group representing one characr ter of a series of characters, and each group being laced together in such as manner as to be interchangeable as a unit in said series relatively to the other groups.

2. A group of cards for use in a Jacquard loom representing a single letter of an alphabet and being laced together in such'a manner as to be interchangeable as a unit with other similar groups to represent a word.

In witness whereof, I hereunto subscribe my signature R. cnawronn mirror. p 

